Aligning with the release of Prey, AMD released the first Radeon Crimson ReLive graphics driver of the month: 17.5.1. This version optimizes the aforementioned title with up to a 4.7% boost in performance, versus 17.4.4 as measured on an RX 580, according to AMD. It also adds multi-GPU support to the title, for those who have multiple AMD graphics cards.

A bunch of bugs were also fixed in this release, as is almost always the case. Probably the most important one, though, is the patch to their auto-updater that prevents it from failing. They also fixed a couple issues with hybrid graphics, including a crash in Civilization VI with those types of systems.

If you’re cringing while reading that headline, then rest assured I felt just as dirty writing it.

NVIDIA has released another graphics driver, 382.05, to align with a few new game releases: Prey, Battlezone, and Gears of War 4’s latest update. The first title is a first-person action-adventure title by Arkane Studios, which releases tomorrow. Interestingly, the game runs on CryEngine... versus their internally-developed Void engine, as seen in Dishonored 2; Unreal Engine, as they’ve used with the original Dishonored; or id Tech, which Bethesda’s parent company, ZeniMax, owns through id Software and has a bit of a name-association with franchise that this Prey rebooted.

Cross-eyed yet? Good. Let’s move on.

Fans of Gears of War 4, specifically those who have multiple NVIDIA graphics cards, might be interested in SLI support for this DirectX 12-based title. As we’ve mentioned in the past, the process of load-balancing multiple GPUs has changed going from DirectX 11 to DirectX 12. According to The Coalition, SLI support was technically available on 381.89 (and 17.4.4 for AMD CrossFire), but NVIDIA is advertising it with 382.05. I’m not sure whether it’s a timing-based push, or if they optimized the experience since 381.89, but you should probably update regardless.

The driver also adds / updates the SLI profile for Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III. A bunch of bugs have been fixed, too, such as “In a multi-display configuration, the extended displays are unable to enter sleep mode.” along with a couple of black and blue screen issues.

Overclockers Club takes a look at XFX's new RX 580, inside and out as they completely removed the cooler to let you see all the parts. The card does come overclocked right out of the box, however OCC pushed the card further, hitting 1440MHz on the GPU and 2116MHz for the memory. That result fell short of the Powercolor Golden Sample card they tested but is still not bad, as XFX is not charging much of a premium over the reference model. Pop by to see the full results.

"XFX's RX 580 8GB GTS Black Edition card is a factory overclocked card that uses a TrueClock OC of 1405MHz on the core right out of the gate with an OC+ core clock of 1425MHz possible. A total of 8GB of high speed GDDR5 memory is used to handle the textures to make 2560 x 1440 the new resolution target."

The latest Game Ready drivers from NVIDIA, 381.89, launched a couple of days before yesterday’s release of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III. These drivers were the target of optimizations for that game, as well as Heroes of the Storm 2.0, Batman: Arkham VR, Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality, and Wilson’s Heart.

Beyond game-specific optimizations, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between these and the previous drivers, 381.65. According to the release notes, the idle voltage has been reduced in some circumstances, a crash in Sniper Elite 3 has been resolved, and two bluescreens have been fixed. That said, there’s occasionally undocumented changes that crop up.

The latest graphics driver from AMD, Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.4.4, aligns with yesterday’s release of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III. They claim that, when the update is applied to an 8GB Radeon RX 580, users could see a performance gain of up-to 7% under certain conditions (when compared to 17.4.3).

The driver was re-released on April 27th, with the new installer no-longer adding a desktop shortcut to join the Quake Champions beta. I haven’t seen it personally, but OC3D claims that the shortcut pointed to a bit.ly link. I can see why users would be upset; AMD should have added an option in the installer that says something like, “Would you like to check out the Quake Champions beta? Yes, No, Create a Desktop Shortcut for Later” rather than just add stuff to the system. That said, a desktop shortcut is as benign as you can get, and I can also see why AMD wouldn’t think much of it.

That issue aside, the driver also fixes several bugs. One notable entry is, for users with an HDR-compatible display, Mass Effect: Andromeda will now display the correct colors under Windows 10 Creators Update. The most severe fix seems to be for RX 550 users, where the GPU would hard-lock a system after “long periods of time” since the last reboot. It sounds like those users should update to 17.4.4 as soon as convenient.

Specifications and Design

When the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti launched last month it became the fastest consumer graphics card on the market, taking over a spot that NVIDIA had already laid claim to since the launch of the GTX 1080, and arguably before that with the GTX 980 Ti. Passing on the notion that the newly released Titan Xp is a graphics cards gamers should actually consider for their cash, the 1080 Ti continues to stand alone at the top. That is until NVIDIA comes up another new architecture or AMD surprises us all with the release of the Vega chip this summer.

NVIDIA board partners have the flexibility to build custom hardware around the GTX 1080 Ti design and the EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC2 sporting iCX Technology is one of those new models. Today’s story is going to give you my thoughts and impressions on this card in a review – one with fewer benchmarks than you are used to see but one that covers all the primary differentiation points to consider over the reference/Founders Edition options.

Specifications and Design

The EVGA GTX 1080 Ti SC2 with iCX Technology takes the same GPU and memory technology shown off with the GTX 1080 Ti launch and gussies it up with higher clocks, a custom PCB with thermal sensors in 9 different locations, LEDs for externally monitoring the health of your card and a skeleton-like cooler design that is both effective and aggressive.

Out of the box EVGA has overclocked the GTX 1080 Ti SC2 above reference specs. With a base clock of 1557 MHz and a GPU Boost clock of 1671 MHz, it has a 77 MHz jump on base and an 89 MHz jump on boost. Though moderate by some overclockers’ standards, that’s a healthy increase of 5.3% on the typical boost clock rate. The memory speed remains the same at 11.0 Gbps on 11GB, unchanged from the Founders Edition.

I’m not going to walk through the other specifications of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GPU in general – I assume if you are looking at this story you are already well aware of it features and capabilities. If you need a refresh on this oddly-designed 352-bit memory bus behemoth, just read over the first page of my GeForce GTX 1080 Ti launch review.

Earlier this month Sapphire announced a new budget-oriented series of graphics cards it calls PULSE. The new series slides in below the premium Nitro+ series to offer cheaper graphics cards that retain many of the high-quality hardware components but lack the flashy extras on the coolers, come in at lower factory overclocks, and have fewer PCI-E power inputs which, in theory, means lower overclocking headroom. The new graphics cards series is currently made up of five Polaris-based GPUs: the Sapphire Pulse RX 580, RX 570, RX 570 ITX, and RX 550.

According to Sapphire, Pulse graphics cards use many of the high-end components as the Nitro+ cards including Black Diamond Chokes 4, long lasting capacitors, fuse protection. And intelligent fan control. The new graphics cards have aluminum backplates, removeable Quick Connect fans with semi-passive cooling technology that allows the fans to turn off when the card is under light load. The RX 580 and RX 570 use Dual-X coolers and the RX 570 ITX and RX 550 use single fan shrouded coolers.

Compared to Nitro+, the coolers are a bit less flashy and there are no Nitro+ Glow LEDs. If you are not a fan of bling or do not have a windowed case, the Pulse cards might save you a bit of money while getting you most of the performance if Sapphire’s claims are accurate.

Speaking of performance, the Pulse branded graphics cards are factory overclocked, just not as much. The Sapphire Pulse RX 580 with its 2,304 cores comes with a boost clock of 1366 MHz, the RX 570 and RX 570 ITX come with GPU boost clocks of 1,284 MHz and 1,244 MHz respectively, and the RX 550 has a boost clock of 1,206 MHz. Memory clocks sit at 8,000 MHz for the RX 580 and 7,000 MHz for the remaining Pulse cards (RX 570, RX 570 ITX, and RX 550).

Along with the introduction of its new Pulse series of graphics cards, Sapphire has entered a “strategic partnership” with motherboard manufacturer Asrock. The new graphics cards are shipping now and will be available at retailers shortly. Pricing for the RX 550 isn’t available, but prices for the other cards has appeared online as follows: Pulse RX 580 8GB for $229.99, Pulse RX 580 4GB for $199.99, Pulse RX 570 for $179.99, Pulse RX 570 ITX for $169.99.

In all, the Pulse cards appear to be about $20 cheaper than the Nitro+ variant. We will have to wait and see if those prices hold up once retailers get stock in.

Phoronix have had a chance to test out the refreshed Polaris RX 580 on the Linux 4.11 kernel and Mesa 17.1-devel, initially the AMDGPU-PRO 17.10 driver update was not included thanks to interesting timing. The performance deltas are as you would expect, a slight increase in performance that is relative to the increased clock speeds, just as when run on Windows. They also had a chance to try overclocking the new card, AMD added support for overclocking GCN 1.2 and newer cards on their proprietary Linux driver in 2016. They managed to increase the core by 6% without running into stability issues however when they overclocked the memory, they saw serious performance decreases. Check out the steps they tried along with the results from the overlocked GPU here.

"Yesterday I posted the initial Radeon RX 580 Linux benchmarks while now with having more time with this "Polaris Evolved" card I've been able to try out a bit more, like the AMDGPU Linux overclocking support. Here are the ups and downs of overclocking the Radeon graphics card under Linux."

Expreview.com(machine-translated from Chinese) believes that NVIDIA will launch the GeForce GT 1030 to compete in the low-end. It’s difficult to tell how confident they are about this next part, due to the translation, but they believe that it will be based on a new Pascal design, GP108, rather than a further-disabled GP107 (as seen in the GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti). Those parts have 640 and 768 CUDA cores, respectively, which might be where their estimate of 512 CUDA cores for GP108 comes from.

As for the merits as a product, it seems a little odd to me. There is some room for it in terms of performance, sliding between the GTX 1050 and integrated graphics with a GTX 750-class part, just with higher clocks and/or lower power due to the Pascal architecture. It does seem risky, though, considering the GTX 1050 already occupies the $110 USD price point.

The post also suggests that the cards will have 1 GB and 2 GB variants.

Corsair partnered with MSI to produce the Hydro GFX GTX 1080 Ti, which has integrated watercooling based around the Corsiar H55 AiO cooler. That cooler is used to support a factory overclock of 1,506 MHz Core, 1,620 MHz Boost and a memory frequency of 11,124MHz, though with the watercooling many will seek to find exactly how much more they can squeeze out of the silicon.

According to their own testing, the GPU barely breaches 40C under load which translates into a higher sustained boost clock. The ML120 LED PWM fan attached to the radiator can be manually set to run between 400-2,400 RPM to allow users to better control how the card operates. This release adds to Corsair's previous offering, a GTX 1080 cooled with the same H55.

FREMONT, CA – April 20th, 2017 - CORSAIR®, a world leader in enthusiast memory, PC components and high-performance gaming hardware today announced the release of the new CORSAIR Hydro GFX GTX 1080 Ti all-in-one liquid cooled graphics card. Combining the extreme gaming horsepower of the NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 Ti GPU with world-renowned CORSAIR Hydro Series liquid cooling and magnetic levitation airflow, the Hydro GFX GTX 1080 Ti delivers the phenomenal performance of an overclocked GTX 1080 Ti with all the benefits of liquid cooling. Cooler temperatures, lower noise, higher clock speeds, and easy installation combine to allow the Hydro GFX GTX 1080 Ti to offer all the performance, with none of the compromises. Developed in partnership with the expert graphics team at MSI®, the Hydro GFX GTX 1080 Ti is powered by the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, the most advanced NVIDIA GeForce GPU ever made. Boasting an irresponsible level of graphics processing performance, the GTX 1080 Ti features 11GB of GDDR5X memory, 3,584 CUDA Cores and a massive 352-bit memory bus, allowing it to drive today’s most demanding games and graphics applications at not just ultra-detail settings and high frame-rates, but stunning 4K resolution; it’s the ultimate GeForce GPU for PC enthusiasts who demand nothing but the best. The Hydro GFX GTX 1080 Ti pushes that performance even further, with a factory overclocked GPU core frequency of 1,506 MHz, boost frequency of 1,620 MHz and a memory frequency of 11,124 MHz, squeezing every frame per second, polygon and pixel out of the GTX 1080 Ti GPU.

The improvements aren’t just in MHz; with the Hydro GFX GTX 1080 Ti, CORSAIR takes NVIDIA’s best and makes it better. By equipping the GPU with a CORSAIR Hydro Series H55 liquid cooler, the heat produced by the GTX 1080 Ti GPU is efficiently channelled away by a micro-fin copper base to a 120mm radiator, allowing heat to be rapidly dissipated and exhausted out of your PC rather than build up inside. The result is up to 50 percent lower GPU temperatures, which in turn allows the Hydro GFX GTX 1080 Ti to boost its GPU clock speeds higher for longer, producing up to ten percent faster performance versus a stock GTX 1080 Ti. What’s more, with quick and easy installation into most 120mm case fan mounts, the Hydro GFX GTX 1080 Ti and its radiator are easy to fit into almost any PC case.

To cool the fastest GeForce GPU ever, CORSAIR selected its most advanced 120mm cooling fan, the ML120 LED. CORSAIR ML Series fans harness magnetic levitation technology to physically suspend the fan rotor away from the fan motor when in operation. This greatly reduces friction and fan noise, allowing the Hydro GFX GTX 1080 Ti to run cool while the ML120 spins at incredibly low noise levels, even with the GPU at full load. What’s more, with 4-pin PWM fan control and a 400-2,400 RPM range, you can tweak and tune the Hydro GFX GTX 1080 Ti’s cooling to suit your system – cool and quiet, or maximum airflow for the lowest temperatures and highest overclocks.

Combining the very best of NVIDIA Pascal GPU architecture, MSI graphics card design and both CORSAIR Hydro Series liquid cooling and magnetic levitation airflow, the CORSAIR Hydro GFX GTX 1080 Ti is the GTX 1080 Ti, but cooler.